back at them. There they were still, three straight, shy figures, holding their sticks, watching our progress fixedly.
Uncle Henry and the planter
The planter, fresh from a tussle with his tractor, had greasy hands and wore a toupee and an open-necked shirt. But like most Southern gentlemen he had a talent for hospitality, and soon we were sitting on the balustrade of his porch, sipping long cool drinks and looking out through the pines. The plantation had once extended to some 10,000 acres of cotton, tobacco, sweet potatoes and corn, but was now whittled down to about 150 acres. He told me that he ran it with only one full-time employee. His children went to the local state school, his wife did the housework, and âThe Streetâ, the double row of uniform cottages where the slaves used to live, was empty and tumbledown.
While we were talking on the porch a great cloud of dust approached us from the drive, and there emerged in stately motion two large mules. They were pulling a kind of sledge, a cross between a bobsled and Cleopatraâs barge, and sitting on it, very old and dignified, was a Negro in a straw hat. Round the corner he came in imperial state, the mules panting, the sledge creaking, the dust billowing around us, and as he passed the porch he raised his hat by its crown and called: âGâd evening, boss, sir; gâd evening, Missus Parker.â âGood evening, Uncle Henry,â they replied.
He was an old retainer of the Parkers who lived almost entirely on their kindness. He was given a house and a few acres, firewood and storage space and a loan when he needed one. The planter would not see him in distress for the world. But to suggest that he might invite the old man into his house, or even shake hands with him, would be more than an impertinence, but might well be construed as adeliberate insult. Uncle Henry will always have a home, but, after all, the race must be preserved.
Family home
After a while I felt quite familiar with the social structure of St Andrewâs, New Brunswick. Who was this, for instance, smiling at me so kindly from the Wren House on Queen Street? Why, who but Miss Lelia Wren, who lives with her sister Miss Frances in the house their family has occupied for 150 years. Who is at the helm of that white boat out there? Mr Hered Hatt the scallop fisherman, of courseâeveryone knows that. In no time at all I was acquainted with Mr Ian Mackay, who owns the Shiretown Inn, and with Mrs Bobby Cockburn, whose late husbandâs pharmacy was one of the townâs prime power centres, and very soon the Venerable Nantlais Jones was waving to me from his handsome Buick Park Avenue limousine, which has CLERGY in ecclesiastical lettering on its windscreen. Hardly has one well-known householder introduced me to her stately collection of teddy bears (âThatâs Boogy, thatâs Oogy, thatâs Daddy Bear in the cornerâ) before another is telling me how effective birth control pills have proved in the propagation of her hibiscus plants.
It was like exploring a rambling old family home, the streets its corridors, the houses its rooms, the citizens its extremely gossipy owners and retainers. One morning I arranged to meet two of the townâs many widows and, idly passing the time beforehand by wandering through the town cemetery, I found both those ladiesâ names already inscribed upon gravestones, below their departed husbandsâ.
Key West, 1960s
Key West is full of people with nothing much to do, but a talent for lounging gracefully in doorways. If I stood on the waterfront on a sunny morning I would soon find other idlers wandering to my side to stare at the water with me, and sometimes gentlemen would buttonhole me with dark questions. Was I looking for rare fish? Had I spoken to Mr Alvark? Was it right, what the papers were saying about convertibility? Did I realize that the deputation from Ecuador was arriving next day? What did the
Uncle Henry and the planter
The planter, fresh from a tussle with his tractor, had greasy hands and wore a toupee and an open-necked shirt. But like most Southern gentlemen he had a talent for hospitality, and soon we were sitting on the balustrade of his porch, sipping long cool drinks and looking out through the pines. The plantation had once extended to some 10,000 acres of cotton, tobacco, sweet potatoes and corn, but was now whittled down to about 150 acres. He told me that he ran it with only one full-time employee. His children went to the local state school, his wife did the housework, and âThe Streetâ, the double row of uniform cottages where the slaves used to live, was empty and tumbledown.
While we were talking on the porch a great cloud of dust approached us from the drive, and there emerged in stately motion two large mules. They were pulling a kind of sledge, a cross between a bobsled and Cleopatraâs barge, and sitting on it, very old and dignified, was a Negro in a straw hat. Round the corner he came in imperial state, the mules panting, the sledge creaking, the dust billowing around us, and as he passed the porch he raised his hat by its crown and called: âGâd evening, boss, sir; gâd evening, Missus Parker.â âGood evening, Uncle Henry,â they replied.
He was an old retainer of the Parkers who lived almost entirely on their kindness. He was given a house and a few acres, firewood and storage space and a loan when he needed one. The planter would not see him in distress for the world. But to suggest that he might invite the old man into his house, or even shake hands with him, would be more than an impertinence, but might well be construed as adeliberate insult. Uncle Henry will always have a home, but, after all, the race must be preserved.
Family home
After a while I felt quite familiar with the social structure of St Andrewâs, New Brunswick. Who was this, for instance, smiling at me so kindly from the Wren House on Queen Street? Why, who but Miss Lelia Wren, who lives with her sister Miss Frances in the house their family has occupied for 150 years. Who is at the helm of that white boat out there? Mr Hered Hatt the scallop fisherman, of courseâeveryone knows that. In no time at all I was acquainted with Mr Ian Mackay, who owns the Shiretown Inn, and with Mrs Bobby Cockburn, whose late husbandâs pharmacy was one of the townâs prime power centres, and very soon the Venerable Nantlais Jones was waving to me from his handsome Buick Park Avenue limousine, which has CLERGY in ecclesiastical lettering on its windscreen. Hardly has one well-known householder introduced me to her stately collection of teddy bears (âThatâs Boogy, thatâs Oogy, thatâs Daddy Bear in the cornerâ) before another is telling me how effective birth control pills have proved in the propagation of her hibiscus plants.
It was like exploring a rambling old family home, the streets its corridors, the houses its rooms, the citizens its extremely gossipy owners and retainers. One morning I arranged to meet two of the townâs many widows and, idly passing the time beforehand by wandering through the town cemetery, I found both those ladiesâ names already inscribed upon gravestones, below their departed husbandsâ.
Key West, 1960s
Key West is full of people with nothing much to do, but a talent for lounging gracefully in doorways. If I stood on the waterfront on a sunny morning I would soon find other idlers wandering to my side to stare at the water with me, and sometimes gentlemen would buttonhole me with dark questions. Was I looking for rare fish? Had I spoken to Mr Alvark? Was it right, what the papers were saying about convertibility? Did I realize that the deputation from Ecuador was arriving next day? What did the
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